My Patients Are All Mythical Monsters

0033 - Street Psychology

"Nice payout," the leader said, his voice a synthesized rasp. The equalizer on his visor spiked with every syllable.

He reached a gloved hand toward the pile of screaming coins on the sticky counter. The other three g**g members fanned out, blocking the rain-slicked exit. Four of them. Standard intimidation formation. The neon lights from the noodle stand reflected off their wet, matte-black armor, making them look like oil slicks given humanoid form.

"I wouldn't," Victor said. His voice was trembling, but he forced the words out.

"Yeah?" The leader's mechanical fingers hovered inches from the gold. "Why's that?"

"Look at the glow," Victor lied, his mind racing. "Unstable isotopes. Spent fuel rods from the Reactor Sector. Why do you think I'm shaking?"

He held up a hand. It was vibrating violently—a genuine symptom of his crashing blood sugar, but in the flickering neon light, it looked like the result of massive neurological damage.

The leader hesitated. The coins were glowing with a sickly, reddish heat—a side effect of being minted in the infernal forges of the Abyss—and the "screaming faces" stamped on them looked uncomfortably like radiation burns. He pulled his hand back, the servos in his wrist whining with uncertainty.

"You're walking around with a pocket full of death?"

"I'm a courier," Victor said, seizing the narrative. "Hazard pay. High risk, high reward. But mostly high risk."

"He's lying, boss," a lanky kid on the left sneered. He had too many wires protruding from his neck, and his eyes were frantic, darting around the stall. "Look at his feet. He's wearing bunny slippers. Who runs hazard ops in slippers?"

Victor looked down at the mud-splattered pink rabbits. He didn't blink.

"Tactical dampeners," Victor said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Sound absorption. Grounding for the static charge. Standard issue for Class-4 containment."

The kid blinked. "Bullshit."

He stepped forward, racking the slide of a pistol that looked like it had been 3D-printed in a basement. "I'm taking the gold. Radioactive or not."

Fenrisulfr, currently compressed into the shape of a large, shaggy wolfhound, let out a sound that wasn't quite a growl. It was a low, resonant thrum, like a subway train passing directly beneath their feet. The puddle water around his paws rippled in concentric circles.

"I wouldn't," Victor warned again. "He smells the cortisol in your sweat. He knows you're terrified."

"I ain't scared of a dog," the kid spat, though he didn't take another step.

"Not the dog," Victor said, locking eyes with the leader. "The breakdown."

He turned his gaze to the leader's left shoulder. It was twitching. A microscopic, rhythmic spasm that most people would miss. But Victor wasn't most people. He was a psychologist who had spent centuries analyzing the micro-expressions of demons, gods, and desperate men.

"You're suffering from acute neural rejection," Victor stated.

The leader froze. "What?"

Victor leaned forward, fighting the wave of dizziness that threatened to topple him. The hypoglycemia was clawing at his vision, turning the edges of the world gray. He needed sugar. But first, he needed to win.

"Insomnia," Victor recited, his voice flat and clinical. "Phantom pains radiating from the elbow to the neck, usually peaking around dawn. Metallic taste in the mouth, like you've been sucking on pennies. And let me guess—occasional visual artifacts? Like static in your peripheral vision?"

The leader went rigid. The nail-g*n lowered an inch. "How... how did you know?"

"I'm a doctor," Victor lied. "And you are three days away from total neural cascade failure. Your cheap wiring is frying your brain stem. The insulation on those nerve grafts is degrading. I can smell the ozone from here."

"Cascade failure?" The leader's voice trembled, losing its synthesized edge. "The ripper-doc said it was mil-spec! He showed me the certification! It had a hologram and everything!"

"He lied," Victor said smoothly. "It's recycled. Mining droid scrap. The impedance mismatch is tearing you apart. That's why your hand shakes. That's why you can't focus. Do you hear a humming sound? Like a bee trapped in your ear canal?"

The leader clutched his helmet with both hands. "Yes! All the time! I thought I was going crazy!"

"It's not madness. It's feedback," Victor said. "And it's going to kill you."

The lanky kid looked at his boss, then at Victor. The g*n in his hand wavered. "Boss? You okay?"

"Shut up, Miky!" the leader snapped. He turned back to Victor, desperation leaking through his vocal modulator. "Can you stop it? The screaming in my head?"

"I can," Victor said. He pointed a shaking finger at the goblin cook, who was watching the exchange with his mouth open, a half-lit cigarette dangling from his lip. "But first. The bowl. Now."

The goblin scrambled. The threat of radiation combined with the drama was enough to override his usual laziness. Within seconds, a steaming bowl of synth-ramen was slammed onto the sticky counter.

Victor didn't wait for a spoon. He lifted the bowl with both hands, the ceramic scalding his palms, and drank.

The broth was salty, fatty, and tasted vaguely of motor oil and burnt onions. To Victor, it was ambrosia. The liquid heat flooded his chest, chasing away the cold that had settled in his bones since the portal jump. He shoved noodles into his mouth with his bare fingers, dignity abandoned in the face of survival. The starch hit his bloodstream like a jump-start.

The g**g watched in horrified silence. To them, this wasn't a man eating lunch. This was a reactor refueling.

"Is he... absorbing the nutrients for the shielding?" Miky whispered, eyes wide.

"Shh," the leader hissed. "Let him work."

Victor slammed the empty bowl down. He exhaled, a long, shuddering breath. The tremors in his hands began to subside. The gray fog lifted. He felt human again.

He looked at the leader, wiping grease from his lip with a silk handkerchief that had miraculously stayed clean.

"Better," he said. "Now. Your arm."

The leader hesitated, then extended his twitching arm. Victor grabbed the wrist. He didn't need magic to feel the problem. The vibrations were chaotic, a jarring dissonance against the bone. The cheap servos were misaligned, grinding against the biological nerves.

Victor pressed his thumb into a pressure point near the elbow—a trick he'd learned from a dwarven smith who specialized in golems—and twisted.

With a sharp click, the joint reseated.

The leader yelped, then gasped.

"The noise," the leader breathed, flexing his fingers. "It stopped."

"Percussive realignment," Victor said, releasing the arm. "I reseated the grounding wire. It's a temporary fix. It'll hold for forty-eight hours. But you need a full overhaul. New shielding. Better grounding."

"Can you do it?" The leader sounded like a child asking for a toy.

"My clinic is private," Victor said, standing up. He felt steady now. The world had stopped spinning. "By invitation only."

He looked at the gold on the counter. He selected one coin—the smallest one—and slid it toward the goblin. The goblin recoiled, then cautiously covered it with a metal pot lid, as if catching a spider.

"Keep the change," Victor said.

He turned to the leader. "Come to Blackwood Manor. Knock three times. If a skeleton answers, don't scream. It's rude."

"Blackwood Manor," the leader repeated, storing the data. "Got it. Thanks, Doc."

He hesitated. "You sure you don't want us to... escort you? With that cargo? There are other crews out tonight. The Iron Skulls are looking for trouble."

"Iron Skulls," Victor repeated. He didn't know them, but he knew the type. Cyber-junkies with more chrome than sense. He filed the name away for later analysis.

"Unless you want your marrow to boil, stay back," Victor said, his voice dropping an octave. "My containment field is destabilizing. I need to get this back to the vault before I reach critical mass."

The Vipers took a collective step back. Miky looked like he was holding his breath.

"Understood," the leader said, saluting with his nail-g*n. "Clear the street, boys! Let the Doctor pass!"

Victor walked away into the rain, his trench coat billowing. Fenrir trotted beside him, casting a long, distorted shadow that seemed to swallow the light.

They walked in silence for two blocks, putting distance between themselves and the noodle stand. The adrenaline began to fade, replaced by the damp chill of the district.

"That was close," Victor muttered.

Fenrir looked up, his tongue lolling out. 'You promised me a leg. That one with the wires looked crunchy.'

"No eating the locals," Victor scolded softly. "Bad for the property values."

He glanced back. The street was empty. The bluff had held.

"Besides," Victor added, patting the heavy pouch in his pocket. "We have bigger problems. We just told a local g**g lord that we live in the haunted mansion on the hill. We're going to have patients."

Fenrir huffed. 'Patients mean meat.'

"Patients mean co-pays," Victor corrected. "And right now, we need every coin we can get."

He looked up at the Manor, looming dark and silent against the bruised purple sky. It was a wreck. A money pit. A disaster waiting to happen.

But for the first time in centuries, it felt like home.

"Let's go," Victor said, stepping over a puddle that reflected the shattered moon. "I think I have some old medical textbooks in the library. I should probably read them before Tuesday."

He didn't look back. The rain continued to fall, washing away the footprints of the man who had conquered a g**g with a bowl of noodles and a lie.